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Get that tiger out of the tank!

September 18, 2003

Legal requirements on the disposal of scrapped vehicles are being tightened. New European legislation due to enter force in 2006 requires at least 85 percent by weight of end-of-life vehicles to be reclaimed - a figure that is likely to rise. Eighty percent of the recovered material has to be processed for reuse, i.e. not destroyed by incineration or a similar thermal process. The associated costs must be borne by the vehicle manufacturers and importers.

An economical recycling method that meets these requirements has been devised for plastic fuel tanks made of polyethylene. About 15,000 metric tons of such waste is collected from scrap yards and workshops in Germany every year. In common with the 10,000 metric tons of discarded oil tanks from domestic heating systems, by the end of their useful life they will have soaked up with 3 to 5 percent by weight of the fuel they once contained. This is an immense problem for recycling firms, who have to find ways to separate the fuel from the polyethylene. For when the granulated plastic is melted down to form new products, some of the combustible hydrocarbon evaporates, posing a safety risk. And new components made from the recycled material would give off an unpleasant smell. A group of seven industrial firms are investigating problems that arise during recycling, in the hope of finding a reasonably cost-effective solution. The project on "closed-cycle materials management of liquid-bearing polymer components", led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology ICT, is being funded by the German research ministry until January 2004.

"To separate the materials, we have chosen an extraction method using supercritical carbon dioxide," relates ICT project manager Birgit Bohlmann. "The shredded fuel tanks are placed in pressurized vessels and diffused with CO2 gas. At a specific pressure and temperature, the gas acts as a highly efficient solvent, extracting the fuel that has infiltrated the plastic. The gas is then pumped round a circuit, and the pressure is reduced to release the dissoved fuel." The process parameters are optimized in laboratory experiments, then scaled up in consultation with the project partners. One of the latest ideas is to combine the extraction and extrusion processes. Instead of cleaning the granulate, the operation is performed on the remelted bulk plastic - shortly before it is shaped into a new product. This and similar know-how can be gleaned from the ICT research scientists at the Entsorga environmental engineering show, to be held in Cologne from September 23 to 27 (Hall 12.2, Stand F 041).

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

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